I'm considering getting "Life is Strange", but don't know much about it. Enlighten me.

[Kingjackl]

I've been considering picking up Life Is Strange too. I don't mind Telltale stuff, but the cringeworthy "hella-selfie" dialogue (which I've heard gets better in later episodes) does sound very off-putting to me. Then again, I was a teenager only two years ago so maybe I'll find it more relatable than some adults. I mean, assuming teens wouldn't be shallow enough to speak in pop-culture buzzwords is giving them a bit too much credit, wouldn't you say?

Also, I had a fun time mentally replacing any instance of "SJW", or "tumblr" with "icky scary girl cooties", because it's funny and gives a much clearer idea of the mental age of people using those terms in this context.

 

[ninja666]

Also, I had a fun time mentally replacing any instance of "SJW", or "tumblr" with "icky scary girl cooties", because it's funny and gives a much clearer idea of the mental age of people using those terms in this context.

Please, don't assume I'm mentally an angsty child because I am not. I'm far from it actually. I just don't really know what else to call a game that's clearly some sort of propaganda message without using terms and places those things mostly originate from and are generalized as. If you have any non-sarcastic ideas, then I'll be more than happy to read them.

 

[Silence]

I've been watching a LP, and I think I know what you mean by *rubs it all over your face*, so I will try an answer:

It has this stuff in the background, and it can be pretty stupid at times (I mean the bad guy does the whole "you're a feminazi" thing to the main protagonist, and she never does anything like campaigning or even being authoritarian, so it does paint a bad caricature of some people). But as a whole, this stuff has nothing to do with the main story, which is entertaining at least. Not deeply philosophical (I don't know if it tries to be this way, it can sometimes feel like it tries to hard, but most of the time it does not care about that, which is completely fine), but entertaining.
Just the "teenage hipster dialect" can be off-putting, I needed some time to not cringe at every dialogue.

And it seems to have the best mechanics for an episodic adventure game.

So it really depends how much you are a "I hate everything that seems like SJWs" person, or how much you can overlook some cringey stuff to get an entertaining story and game.
It doesn't seem to have a propagandic message.

 

[Zaltys]

I wouldn't define it as a "SJW game", but to be honest I have no idea what someone who uses such terms unironically even thinks that is, so I could very easily be way off the mark on that count.

I presume that "SJW game" would be something like blaxploitation.
Except instead of minorities being consistently portrayed as violent (or lazy and stupid), it's the majorities who receive such portrayal. In a SJW game all straight white males would be thieves, killers, rapists, bullies, etc. And the amount of wealth would directly correlate to how evil the character is.

 

[ninja666]

So it really depends how much you are a "I hate everything that seems like SJWs" person, or how much you can overlook some cringey stuff to get an entertaining story and game.
It doesn't seem to have a propagandic message.

As I said, I'm fine with this stuff as long as its not the focal point of the game, which judging from your post it seems to not be the case here.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

But if you didn't like Gone Home solely because it has a lesbian in it, which it kinda sounds like...

Nah, not really. I'm okay with this kind of stuff, unless the game tries to rub it all over my face, which Gone Home did, considering its whole story boiled down to "look how opressed this poor lesbian is! by her stereotypical super-conservative parents no less!", while at the same time hinting that it's just a subplot and the game's actual plot is the story of uncle Oscar.

Gone home doesn't rub anything into anything. It's a very passive story. The only things rubbed in your face are the things you pick up and rub on your face. (That is actually part of why the got such praise.) Life is strange would be more ruby simply because of the way the story is told. You get put on the spot and made to engage with it. I guess life is strange might be more subtitle, but I found it really easy to pick out the themes. (maybe that is just because I know them already)

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I've been considering picking up Life Is Strange too. I don't mind Telltale stuff, but the cringeworthy "hella-selfie" dialogue (which I've heard gets better in later episodes) does sound very off-putting to me. Then again, I was a teenager only two years ago so maybe I'll find it more relatable than some adults. I mean, assuming teens wouldn't be shallow enough to speak in pop-culture buzzwords is giving them a bit too much credit, wouldn't you say?

The dialogue bordered on horrendous at time in Episode One. They clearly listened to criticism and have attempted to remedy the problem, with generally acceptable results. They even lampshade the first episode's overuse of "Hella" at one point.

What the game does consistently well from episode one straight through four is capture an appropriate emotional tenor for its characters. Their reactions to the world and to one another...particularly Max...seem about right for their age. These are not tiny adults masquerading about in human form. They look, act and talk like socially awkward art-school teens. Which is not to say that the game plays like four episodes of Degrassi Junior High. It starts out very reminiscent of...I dunno...Season One Buffy (without the monsters) and slowly but surely starts sliding towards Twin Peaks. It can be a surprisingly heavy/dark story at times, one that rivals Telltale at their heart-string pulling best.

And event though I'd never sit down with any of it away from the game, the use of music is fantastic.

As I said, I'm fine with this stuff as long as its not the focal point of the game, which judging from your post it seems to not be the case here.

I think I get what you mean. Without fully knowing all that might be encompassed in one person's translation of 'SJW' (it's a pretty flexibly applied term), I can tell you that there is 'SJW' stuff in the game, but the game isn't ABOUT 'SJW' stuff. If that makes sense. Much in the same way that Witcher 3 had a lot of brutality and misanthrophy and general horror in it, but that was part of the general world building, and not anything to do with the plot or theme of the game (some moronic articles written about it notwithstanding). Life is Strange has 'SJW' things in it...one character might or might not be a lesbian...one character uses "feminazi" as an insult at one point...there's a sub plot about fairly extreme bullying...but like Witcher, it's window dressing and world building. These are sensitive teens attending an exclusive art/photography school. Some of them care about this stuff, including the main character, and that is expressed in their dialogue and inner monologues from time to time. And as the main character endorses such concepts, and the primary antagonists do not, that can easily be interpreted as the game's writers supporting them (which they very evidently do). But the game isn't ABOUT those things specifically (unless the last chapter takes an astonishing left turn), either in plot or theme.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It's like an interactive miniseries. It's not going to rock your world because of its unique gameplay mechanics or anything like that, but it will keep you interested because of how well it is put together. There is nothing else like it in video game world and that's what makes it so interesting. It is unique in that regard and in a good way. The setting is interesting, the characters will quickly grow on you and you will hate some with passion and that hate will also keep you motivated in hopes of seeing bad things happen to those shitty characters. It's well written if you can forgive their overuse of some modern teenage slang in the first episode (it's not a big deal). And the choices really matter. They make the game highly replayable.
The most fascinating thing for me is how well directed the game is. Not as good as The Witcher 3 IMHO, but it's still excellent. Especially the use of music and time of day to capture the appropriate atmosphere. And the atmosphere is amazing.

 

[chikusho]

Honestly, is the mere presence of a hbtq person in media now considered to be 'SJW stuff'? What reality do you people live in?

OT
Life is strange is excellent. It's an impressively put together interactive story that rewards players who want to go around and inspect everything, talk to everyone and immerse themselves in world. The world itself feels very authentic, the characters are interesting. And even though the common high-school archetypes are represented, most of them feel genuine enough to empathize with on a basic level. I highly recommend it.

 

[Darren716]

I've been watching a let's play of the game and got caught up to the end of the latest episode yesterday, the first two episodes are very hard to get through namely because of the dialogue which sounds like how a 50 year old thinks high schoolers talk which is compounded since the game takes place in a private high school which focuses in art causing many of the characters, including the character you control, to sound really pretentious at times. The characters are overall pretty terrible and one note except for one character who basically gets killed off early on, and the worse character is the one you spend the most time with who constantly makes terrible decisions and goes against your advise just to contrive the plot or to kill time with pointless tasks. Luckily once the game gets through its setup and the plot gets going the cringey dialogue becomes less common but the game will still stop at times to focus on unimportant tangents even when much more important events are going on. The time power leads to some interesting puzzles but it does act as a deus ex machina at times when a new power is introduced and used once and screams lazy writing. There are also some huge plotholes relating to the time power one of which happens about 15 minutes into the game and could completely get rid of the game's main antagonist.

 

[ninja666]

So, as I mentioned before, I bought the first episode to try it out. I'm so buying the rest cause the first one was awesomesauce, you dig? It was, like, hella dark and I totally didn't expect it to turn into the direction it did.


Seriously, though, I was positively surprised at how good it turned out to be. Sure, at the very beginning I was cringing whenever any of the characters opened their mouth, but after an hour or so playing I got used to it and just sort of rolled with it. I'm glad to know it's going to get better in the later episodes, though cause I think this forced slang was the only bad thing in this episode and kind of ruined the whole atmosphere at times. I'm still positively surprised, though, and if the rest of the episodes keep at least the level of writing I saw in that first one, this game's gonna be a 10/10 for me.

 

[Kingjackl]

Also, I had a fun time mentally replacing any instance of "SJW", or "tumblr" with "icky scary girl cooties", because it's funny and gives a much clearer idea of the mental age of people using those terms in this context.

Please, don't assume I'm mentally an angsty child because I am not. I'm far from it actually. I just don't really know what else to call a game that's clearly some sort of propaganda message without using terms and places those things mostly originate from and are generalized as. If you have any non-sarcastic ideas, then I'll be more than happy to read them.

If you think Gone Home or Life is Strange is propaganda because they have lesbians, then yeah, you are a bit immature in my eyes. I mean, Gone Home is a mystery that baits-and-switches into a coming-of-age love story...that just happens to have a lesbian relationship as the focus. Whenever I see arguments decrying it as SJW propganda or whatever, I can't help but think "how could it have done it in a way that that person would accept", and that leads me to think the person arguing that would object to the content no matter how it was presented. And that in turn leads me to think that person can't handle having their views challenged.

Anyway, I'm seeing a lot of recommendations for LiS myself, think I might give it a go.

 

[ninja666]

-snip-

I suggest learning comprehensive reading, it's a very useful skill. I've already explained twice why I think that way of Gone Home and, until I actually played the first episode, suspected something similar of Life is Strange (and no, it's not for the sole fact of the presence of a homosexual female). Hell, it's even explained quite clearly in the OP, since many people seemed to understand what I had in mind and explained everything. Only you're insisting on telling me it's not the case and your interpretation of my post is the right one.

 

[Arshaq13]

I don't like anything that feel too pretentious or pander to an 'SJW' style crowd. I had fears of this game being that way too.

I played episode 1, liked the idea and concept and decided to go on with the game till the end(there's one episode left though that comes out in October, I think) and I really really liked the last episode(i.e. I like the direction they took). The writing is pretty hit-and-miss but when it's good, it's pretty awesome. You can see a few things coming from a mile away but the way it's presented is pretty good.

There are negatives ofcourse, most of it is just high-school drama, the writing could be better at times and it feels like every other character is well acted except for the main player-character, Max.

There's a good amount of stuff you can see or do while you explore linear areas that build the world very well, imho.
If you like Telltale style of games, you MIGHT just like it. Among my friends, they're divided in opinion.

The time rewind mechanic is good stuff though.

It's not just a high-school drama though, there are bigger things happening within the storyline of the game and they're pretty cool actually.

Try and watch a bit of ep.1 on youtube and see if you like it. (obvious idea is obvious lol).

Apologies if I've only made you confused!

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I'm getting the impression from this thread that I should tough this game out.

I played a large chunk of the first episode because I was hungry for gameplay-lite story focused games (played Walking Dead, BttF, Monkey Island, Steins;Gate, Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk, Ghost Trick, 999, etc.) and I'm apparently too old to deal with a lot of the character-based issues brought up here (and my wife completely gave me shit the first time she heard "hella" and "selfie" come from a game I was playing, so that didn't help). I also remember being a teenager and have at least a basic understanding of modern teenagers and the characters still felt like pandering to an audience of like-minded people that don't seem to actually exist.

That said, if that issue lightens up, and the time-travel mechanic doesn't cause me anxiety (I've been trained by games to kind of freak out if I get a chance to immediately alter a story decision I just made 5 seconds ago), I'll give episode 2 a shot. I guess I can see it subverting or completely avoiding a lot of what "normal" games do, and that could be interesting.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

I wrote this in another thread:

Ever since I started playing the Episodic Adventure series Life is Strange by DontNod Entertainment three months ago, I can no longer get into any of Telltale Games's Episodic Adventures.

Some of the reasons appear in this video:


I loved The Walking Dead, and The Wolf Among Us. I enjoyed the first episodes of Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones. Since playing LiS though, it's made everything in TftB and GoT seem completely artificial.[footnote]I am well aware they're video games and thus wholly artificial. But when I step into a game, I can usually forget that and lose myself within immersion. There's no longer immersion for me with TTG.[/footnote]

When I played the new Telltale episodes it bothered me that I have no freedom of movement and ability to explore within actual levels, only fixed cameras within simple set pieces. It's disappointing that there are barely any objects to interact with. The quicktime event action sequences were once welcome breaks between slow moments, but now come off as force injected intermissions to break up mainstream gamer ADD. None of my dialogue options seem to matter; I could just stay silent/wait for the timer to run and still come to the same conclusion as any "choice." All of the "big decisions" with no time limits are so extreme and binary...yet they don't seem to matter at all.

I concede the writing is still excellent, in terms of dialogue and narrative. Yet, the story structure is lacking for its medium, feeling more like animated choose your own adventure novels than actual interactive games.

The beginning of every GoT episode is prefaced with a message.

"You will take on the role of different members of the Forrester household, and determine their fate through the choices you make; your actions and decisions will change the story around you."

Yet we all know that's a lie.[footnote]I suppose part of enjoying entertainment is wanting to be lied to.[/footnote] There are never branching story paths in Telltale Games.[footnote]The conclusion of TWD season 2 doesn't count. And neither does Prince Lawrence in TWAU[/footnote] Your decisions will have little effect on the story and environment. The most you will have control over are the lines said in the moment, and they might be brought up briefly later. The ineffectiveness of player choice is doubled by the fact that their current games are all licensed titles working in established universes with established characters and established canon, so we will never make significant effects in these worlds.

Last week I began playing the third episode of Game of Thrones - "The Sword in the Darkness", and I stopped abruptly and never resumed. There was no pressing matter to attend to, or something better to do. Telltale Adventures typically last only 2 to 5 hours. Yet I couldn't finish. I just didn't care.


PS: I realize that I also lost interest with the Fables comic series, TWD comics and show, never got into Borderlands shooters, and was losing interest in the GoT TV Series until the previous episode Hardhome. Is this ironic or a coincidence?

PPS: Telltale still beats the hell outta DontNod when it comes to dialogue tree diversity, voice acting, and animation.

 

[TravelerSF]

How I'd describe Life Is Strange that it feels like very pure indie, in both the good and the bad.

The game is heavily story focused, but has more gameplay options than Gone Home did. That said, aside from the ocasional puzzles and exploration most of the gameplay elements serve mainly to support the story. This isn't a bad thing though, quite the opposite. I think Life Is Strange is one of the few games that has done the "choises matter" gameplay somewhat correctly. There have been numerous circumstances where I've had to "solve" situations by picking the right dialogue based on what information I've collected earlier. It also has a habit of bringing back your smaller choices so that they alone don't define where the story goes, but instead slowly affect the personal stories surrounding the main story, thus avoiding the mistakes of Telltale for example.

It's also imperfect in many ways, but that's one of the reasons why I like it. I'd much rather take a faulty game that tries to do something new over an average one that I've seen before. You can see it's the development team that has chosen what the game should be, not the publisher. So even though the game deals with "politically correct" stuff (a label which I feel is not justly used in this case) you can see it's not because they want to push an agenda or please a demographic, but because they truly believe in the themes and the story they're trying to tell. Even the cringy teen dialogue grew on me, it has the same kind of awkward charm that Deadly Premonition had for example.